Hunting in Bastion
by YourAverageHero
Summary: After receiving a new arm, Valkyrie Jones sets out to hunt down monsters who suffer from cyber-psychosis.


**Hunting in Bastion**

"Ow! Dammit Markov!"

He chuckled to himself, "Sorry Val, You know I have never worked on your body before."

"Don't you do this shit professionally?"

He chuckled to himself again, "Yeah, but everyone is different. You never know how someone's body will react." He looked down at his work, "You sure you don't want anything else?"

"Risk going psycho? Fuck no."

"Val you can not go psycho from just an arm and a little something else."

"It's still a no from me."

The doctor looked down at her arm, "I never thought it would actually come to this. You always seemed so invincible."

Val looked at her new arm with disgust, "I wish. Never thought I would get a hardbody."

Markov eyes softened, "You sure you don't at least want some SynthSkin? It looks just like the real thing."

Val got up to her feet, "Don't worry about it doc. It's a good reminder of what's at stake." She looked around, "Where did you toss my clothes?"

He pointed at the closest, "Your stuff is in there."

Val nodded and dressed herself. It was a simple outfit black jeans, combat boots, and a tank top. Val looked around confused, "Hey, Markov?"

The good doctor looked up from a piece of cyberware he was tinkering with, "What is the matter, love?"

"Where's my jacket and uh, y'know." She eyed the room.

"Upstairs, with Froggie. The arm was on the house, but we were keeping your more expensive stuff as collateral in case something went wrong."

Val raised an eyebrow, "Oh? I thought someone said you couldn't go psycho from just an arm?"

Markov shrugged, "Still got to be careful, it was just a precaution. You should know why Val."

She looked down at her feet, "Yeah, sorry I brought it up Doc." Val started walking up the stairs.

"Remember to take good care of it! Do not go too hard on it on the first day."

Val waved with her new hand, "Yeah, yeah. I get it Doc."

"Valkyrie Jones!"

"What!"

"Be careful out there love. I do not want to be forced to give you a new eye or worse."

"Don't worry so much Doc' She poked her head back into the lab, 'tonight's prey is probably some small fry after all."

Upstairs Froggie was admitting a new patient for the doctor. Froggie was pretty good name for this exotic. She looked like she had spent thousands of credits on her implants. Her skin was a light green and she was cool to the touch. Val would know after all.

She gave Froggie a quick peck on the cheek, "Where's my stuff girl?"

Froggie nodded at the safe behind the counter. Val punched in the code and put on her black combat jacket emblazoned on the back was a neon red wolf. While heavy it was effective against most bullets and had even managed to prevent a few stabbings, stylish too. She reached for her mag-gun and knife. Gods, it felt comfortable having those back on her hip. She just didn't feel right without them.

Froggie looked her up and down, "Looking good baby, going hunting?"

"You know it."

"Just be careful alright?"

"Me, careful?"

Froggie narrowed her eyes, "You come back to me Valkyrie."

Val sighed, "I'll do my best." She turned around and walked out of Markov's clinic, into Bastion.

Bastion was a sprawling metropolis filled with megabuildings and large corporate laboratories. It was said that someone could go their whole lives without leaving the megabuildings they were born in. Each was essentially their own little city after all or that's what Val had more or less seen. Above the impossibly large megabuildings was the floating city of Babylon. It shone like a brilliant white light, a constant reminder that life could be amazing, if you really gave a shit about that crap. Val wasn't the type of gal to fantasize about the city in the sky. Naw, she had work to do. Val hopped up on her sleek, matte black mono-bike and zoomed down the street. Bastion was beautiful at night. The neon of the buildings blurred into a rainbow of color as she passed by. Eventually she slowed down and parked her bike locking it with her new arm. "Guess you have your uses don't you."

She tossed up her hood and walked through the alleys of Bastion. Weapon dealers hawked their goods at anyone within earshot. Music blared through the windows of nightclubs and net bars. Androids lined the streets handing out flyers and desperately tried to coerce people into their owners establishments. Exotics purred at her to join them in their red rooms. Val almost fell for that one, but she had places to be, psychos to kill. She walked down into a seemingly empty alley with a dead end. As she approached the wall at the end of the alley she held up her wrist where a holo tattoo marked her as an officially ordained Bastion Hunter. _Valkyrie Jones aka Wolf has been cleared to enter, _flashed up on the wall. The wall parted open just enough for a single body to enter before slamming shut behind her.

"Welcome to Artemis." A curvy android said to her. The android held out its hand, "Would you like me to hold onto your coat."

"No thanks Gwen. Not planning on staying for long."

The android left her alone as she descended deeper into Artemis. Eventually she reached the main floor. Hunters filled the place mingling with each other and showing off their stupid body mods. Their were a few full on hardbodies here too. She made sure to keep an eye on those. She approached the bar, eyeing up everyone she passed. A few of them were whispering about the new arm. Above them a Pit fight between Old Man and weak looking nobody was being displayed on the holo screen.

The man at the bar turned around and smiled. "What can I get you today Wolf?' he noticed the damn arm, 'Oh, shit Wolf what happened?"

"Don't."

"Right sorry, touchy subject."

"I'll take a shot of tequila?"

"Sorry, just ran out."

"C'mon Franco! I always tell you to hold onto a bottle for me."

"Sorry, Wolf you know I can't just hold onto stuff just for you. Want anything else?"

"Fuck. No, I'm fine. Just gimme water."

Franco handed her a glass, "Anything else?"

Val smiled at him, "Got any new hits on psychos?"

"Damn, you are scary when you smile, girl! Yeah let me grab you the hit holo. Just a minute." Franco went behind the bar.

Valkyrie Jones the "Wolf", sat quietly at the bar sipping her ice cold glass of water, when two assholes who were begging to be punched touched her shoulder. She whipped her head around and looked at them with a ferocity. Fucking. Hardbodies. "What the hell do you assholes want?"

"Looks like you are one of us now." One of them said to her as they pointed at her new arm.

"Is that what you think? That I'm 'one of you'? That I would willing go out of my way to hack myself into pieces only to replace it with some metal crap? Get the fuck out of here!"

The two hardbodies were taken aback for just a second. "Screw you Wolf! You know that I lost my leg in an explosion and that Marco lost his arm to a gang of psychos."

The Wolf stood up from her chair. "Naw, I can understand replacing a limb, but you two went the whole nine yards.' She flicked one on the forehead with her new arm only to hear a metallic _ting_, "You two don't have a scrap of flesh left do you? No, better than an android."

"Listen Wolf we had just come over to try to make amends no need to push-"

"Bullshit! You came over to rub it in didn't you? I saw all you assholes talking about the fucking arm when I came in."

"Can you blame us? You have always been against body mods, then you come into the room rocking a brand new piece! Why the hell wouldn't people be talking about it?"

The Wolf flinched, "Still, I am not like you. This is out of necessity. I can't fight with only one arm, not against psychos."

"Look we didn't come to start a fight. We just wanted to tell you that you would get used to it and that-"

"I don't want to get used to it. Just go back to dancing and leave me the hell alone."

She turned and snatched the hit holo from Franco. She strode out of Artemis without a glance back at the hunters who were obviously talking about her.

She looked through the hit list. Mafia, druggies, black market doctors, and murderers filled the list with hundreds of potential jobs that she could take on, but none of those mattered to her. She was looking for a very special type of prey. Cyber-psychos. They were hardbodies that went rogue. Not many people can even guess as to why, but introduce enough metal into your body and your mind can't keep up. You just break. Some people can live with a full on hardbody for years, but eventually they end up breaking just like the rest of them.

Val eventually found her prey. It was a female hardbody who was caught ripping out the metal prosthetics from young women. The hit listed her as "Ghoul", real tasteful, and only gave Val a grainy picture to go off of as well as a list of her alleged victim's locations. "Well' she thought, 'it wouldn't be a hunt if they just gave me the monsters exact location." She tapped on her holo band on her wrist. After clearing a few notifications, a map of the city was projected onto her arm. She punched in the locations of the Ghoul's victims and found a pretty clear pattern. The monster had it's hunting grounds and now the Wolf had hers.

Val walked back to her mono-bike bathed in the neon colors of the city. She hopped on and zoomed off into the cold Bastion night. It felt wonderful hunting again, knowing that she would get to kill one of those bastards by the end of the night filled her with a hunger. She had been starved. After losing her arm, the doctor had prevented her from hunting until she had fully healed. She had almost refused his offer of a hard arm, but she knew she had to do it. Val knew that she would have died several times over had she not had the use of both arms, it was just too risky living with just one. Maybe, if she lived in Babylon she could have afforded an organic replacement.

Val knew that she had to focus, after all she hadn't been on a hunt in nearly a month. Her stomach growled, luckily there was some pretty decent food where she was heading. Val arrived at the area near her targets hunting grounds. She quickly brought up the picture of the monster. It had a beautiful doll like face. If she didn't know better Val would have called her attractive. But, she did know better and to her the face was nothing more than a facade that the monster used to lure innocent women to their deaths.

The murders all took place in the alleys around a hardbody nightclub, The Chromium. Val tossed up her jacket hood and fit a glove over her soft hand. If anything her hard arm would at the very least let her fit in at this club. She walked over to the club bouncer. A handsome, tall fellow who was covered in pulsating, sub-dermal tattoos. She tried to walk into the main hall of the club, but he held up a hand. "Invitation or pass?"

"Neither, I'm here on business." The Wolf said as she showed him her hunter holo tattoo.

He sighed gesturing her inside, "Just don't make too much of a mess in there."

She gave him a quick wink, "No promises."

The club's music hit her as if she had just passed into another world. All around her were hardcore hardbodies. Some had completely replaced their entire body with metals of all kinds. Even worse some didn't even have humanoid bodies anymore. All around her the Wolf saw potential future targets. She receded deeper into her hood not wanting to be noticed. Before she started looking for Ghoul she knew that she had to grab some grub. She flicked her wrist and the club's menu was projected onto her arm. "Can't go wrong with a burger and fries." she murmured to herself. She flopped onto a couch in the corner of the room after ordering. It had a pretty decent view of the whole room and the dance floor itself. So far she hadn't spotted anyone that could match the picture of the Ghoul. Her food was brought to her by a drone that hovered about lazily. As she munched on her food she looked around the room again. Out of the corner of her eye she spied a tall women talking to another girl. From what she could tell they both had full on hard bodies. The shorter girl hopped up onto the tips of her toes and gave the other one a quick kiss. "Dammit, it's not them" she thought.

"Hey aren't you a hunter?"

Val was caught off guard. She was so transfixed with the couple that she had completely missed the women who had sat next to her. The girl had a beautiful face, but it didn't match her picture of the Ghoul. She grabbed Val's hard arm and admired it.

"This is beautiful work. Who made it? How much did it cost? Sorry, if I'm bothering you."

Val instinctively tore her arm out of the girls prying, metal hands. "I'm working right now, leave me alone."

The girl looked at her bewildered, her mismatched hands held against her face, "I'm really sorry hunter. I just wanted to tell you something important." She leaned in close and whispered into the Wolf's ear, "I know who you are hunting and where they are right now." She beckoned for the Wolf to follow her. The Wolf stood up without a word and followed the girl outside.

"Look, I know who you are hunting." the girl said as she led Wolf into one of the many alleys behind the club. "The thing is she's heavily guarded by the club owners. She works with them. She steals the cybernetics from her victims and then gives whatever she doesn't want to the club so they can resell them on the black market."

The Wolf raised up her gloved hand, "Why should I trust you?"

"Because I have the schematics that would get you inside to the club's backroom. Here, let me send it to you." The girl flicked her wrist and sent Wolf the schematic.

Wolf turned around and pretended to fiddle around with her wrist band. She reached into her coat and turned on her knife before whipping around and sinking the blade into the girls torso.

"Fuck, you stabbed me!"

"Only because you were about to do it yourself!"

The girl had extended two long blades from her mismatched forearms. Wolf wretched the blade from the psychos torso. The monster was on borrowed time since the heated blade had cauterized the wound. Soon the oil and fluids that powered her hard body would build up and leave her for dead. Before then Wolf would have to survive a pissed off psycho with swords for arms.

"How did you know!?" Ghoul screamed at Wolf as she lunged with her blades.

Wolf sidestepped the attack and kicked the psycho to the ground, "How stupid do you think I am? First off your arms and legs are all different models. Doesn't take a genius to figure out you were probably the crazy bitch collecting body parts for yourself. Wanna know what really gave you away though?' Wolf snarled at the girl as she upholstered her mag gun and shoved it into the psychos temple, 'it's your fucking face. It's not a good idea to steal your latest victim's face after all."

Wolf pulled the trigger and was splashed with viscera and shrapnel. She got up and wiped the gunk off her face. She leaned down and tore off the psychos wristband, confirmation for the kill. Just as she was turning to leave the Wolf felt a sharp pain in her leg. She groaned as she jumped out of the way of another sweep. In front of her the mangled body of the psycho she thought she had just murdered rose to its feat.

"Fuck." Wolf said softly to herself. She fired a few rounds into the mass of metal and oil. It lunged at her and knocked the pistol from her hand. She turned on her knife once again and managed to barely parry a blow from the psycho's blades. She cut through one of the blades but not before the knife is wrenched from her hand. Wolf is forced to raise her arm to protect herself from the next blow. The psycho's blade cuts a deeply into her hard arm severing her mental connection to it. In desperation Wolf grabbed the psycho's broken blade from the floor and shoved it into the monsters chest. Just then the fluids that had been building up in the monster's torso started to overflow breaking the hardbody beyond repair.

Valkyrie Jones retrieved her weapons and stumbled to her mono-bike broken and bloody. She rode in a daze, barely conscious. Eventually she forced herself off of her bike and into Markov's clinic. Blood slowly trailed behind her as she made her way down into the doctor's lab. She looked up at him and sheepishly smiled cradling her broken hard arm, "Got a new one Doc?"


End file.
